Doświadczenia nieformalnych opiekunów osób starszych – sprawozdanie z badań .
Experiences of informal caregivers of older people – research report

Summary/Abstract: Providing care for the elderly is becoming an important task in the contextof an aging society. Despite the availability of various institutional forms, manyfamilies decide to provide a dependent elderly person with care in their currentliving environment. However, this situation generates various difficulties. The article presents the results of quantitative research conducted on a group of 166 caregiversof dependent elderly people in the Stalowa Wola, Strzyżow, and KolbuszowaCounties (of Subcarpathian Voivodeship). The study was conducted with the use ofa survey technique alongside an in-depth free interview with a list of informationsought. The main aim of the research was to learn about the dilemmas and challengesrelated to caring for an elderly person from the perspective of informal caregivers.The obtained research results indicate that caring for a dependent elderly person isexhausting, causing chronic stress and fatigue. It seems rarely to be rewarding orfulfilling. Much more often, it is associated with a negative impact on the psycho-physical state of caregivers. There is a grand need to increase the scale and form ofboth state-financed and non-governmental institutions’ aid directed at this group ofbeneficiaries.

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